Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist, and documentary filmmaker whose work delves into themes of home, freedom, journeys, geographical and cultural displacement, communal conflict, and gender politics. Her poetry, often drawing from her lived experiences and observations, explores the complexities of Muslim women's lives, injustice, and oppression within cultural traditions. Dharker masterfully blends word and image, frequently illustrating her own poetry collections. Her output has established her as one of Britain's most inspirational contemporary poets, with her influence extending beyond literature through her extensive work in documentary film and visual art.
Shadow Reader is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and earthy Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. The poems bind this looming curse to the colonisation of countries, the earth and its creatures, those who own the story and those who redirect it through art or artifice.